16 GEOGRAPHY [No.99 of the Ubanghi and Bomu rivers, a group of peoples, the Azande and cognate tribes, and in the north -east, near the Nile, Nilotic elements, cover considerable areas, while the Watussi near Lake Kivu are of Abyssinian origin . Scattered over the whole State there are isolated groups of people of small stature, the Nains, who are probably the remnants of indigenous races. The chief group of Nains inhabit the Ituri forest. The predominant people of the Azande group are the Avunguru , who are almost white in colour.

Language There are four languages in common use : Fiote, Bangala, Kiswahili, and Kiluba . These are degenerate mixed tongues, which serve as a means of intercourse along the main arteries of communication .

The development of a lingua franca tends to be carried still farther, for it is asserted that Fiote and Bangala tend to merge into a single hybrid speech. As a rule identity of speech implies identity of race ; but the Bakango are known to use different dialects.

Bantu race and Bantu speech , however, do not always coincide ; the Bongo and Warega,for example, are Bantu peopleswho do not use a Bantu dialect ; the Wageniaand Bushongo, on the other hand, have a Bantu language, although they are not Bantu by race.

The whole area of the Congo State has not been fully explored linguistically, but it seems possible to group the numerous tongues as North , South, and East Bantu. North Bantu includes the languages in use along the middle Congo and the Aruwimi, South Bantu those of the lower Congo and the Kasai 1 The people of small stature have been called Pygmies, Batwas, Nains . The (French) term Nain is used here in preference to the term Batwa in order to distinguish these Congo pygmies from the Bushmen of South Africa , to whom the term Batwa is also applied.